


Unspoken, the Name for Home

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Earthsea - Ursula K. Le Guin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-21
Updated: 2008-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 04:59:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1632797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is always the next thing to do. Post-Tehanu.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unspoken, the Name for Home

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to anamart for the beta.
> 
> Written for DragoJustine

 

 

Ged woke with Heather's hand on his knee and his face pressed against Moss's doorjamb. Tenar leaned heavily against his other side, and when he looked over the top of her head, he saw Therru -- Tehanu, now -- tucked under Tenar's arm. The sun shone brightly over head, and he squinted when he met Heather's gaze. She pushed a warm bundle, smelling of bread, into his lap, then pointed towards Ogion's house.

"Go home," she said.

Ged nodded and Heather touched the top of his head shyly, then took another bundle in to Moss. Ged worked his arm out from under Tenar's cheek and slid it around her shoulders. She stirred when he jostled her, and smiled as she took in their location.

"I meant to stay awake," she said, and shook her head.

"I expect we needed the rest," Ged said. Tenar glanced at Tehanu, still sleeping, and nodded.

"That we did." Tenar ran her hand up the child's arm and smoothed her hair. "We should go soon."

"Heather said as much."

Tenar smiled. "It won't be good for us to sleep all day, even after --" She paused, then shrugged and pulled away from Ged. "Come, dear," she said to Tehanu, and shook her gently awake. "It's time to go back to Ogion's house now."

Tehanu rubbed her good fist against her good eye and then peered up at Ged and Tenar. "Are we still going to live there?" 

Ged glanced at Tenar, who smiled slyly. "We decided while you slept," she told him.

"That is a risk of sleep," he agreed. "You truly want to stay?"

She looked to the distance, down the path. "The farm is Spark's, now, and I want to live someplace that is my own. Besides," she said, and turned to Ged, "we said we would stay."

Ged stood slowly, stiffly, and held his hands to Tenar and Tehanu. The girl scrambled up on her own, but Tenar took both his hands. She held his gaze for a long moment before turning. They gave their good-byes to Moss and headed for the empty house.

.

They added bedrooms and a cool-room over the summer, with Spark's help, but little else was different. In many ways, Ged found life in Ogion's home unchanged. He rises early here, as always, to build up the morning's fire and to tend to the goats. He helps with the cooking and cleaning, the mending. He knows the sounds of a late winter morning -- the creaking of trees, the near-silent fall of snow. He knows the steaming of his breath as he watches the sun rise over trees, alone.

Everyone knows his name in this house, but now, he knows their own in return. Therru goes to town, visits her Aunty Moss, and helps Heather with the goats, but it is Tehanu who comes home and learns the songs. Goha is asked after frequently, and the White Lady winds her way through the songs, but the woman chanting under her breath while she churns the milk is Tenar. Here, within these walls, they know each other.

Ged walks the paths and knows the true name of everything he sees. He lost his power, but perhaps knowledge is something different, separate. He remembers what he used to have, even if he can no longer use it. He watches Tehanu, sometimes, as she does her chores, and wonders how it would have been to know a thing, instead of having to learn it. 

They all teach her what they can. Tehanu learns the things any Gontish child does, how to watch animals and which plants to pick and the ways of addressing adults. Tenar gives her specifically female knowledge, and even when these lessons cover things Ged knows as well, he sees them performed differently by Tenar's hands than with his own. She teaches Tehanu how to prepare and present food for company, how to care for clothing, how to keep her newly-grown hair clean. Moss teaches her herb lore, the earliest lessons of which are little more than recipes for tea, and Heather teaches her perhaps the most of all: how to think like a goat, how to know why it does things instead of merely how. Ged thinks that Heather knows the names of things as well, although she cannot say them.

Ged does not bother with naming things for Tehanu. He tries, instead, to show her other things she would absorb in Roke, were it possible for her to attend: patience, balance, respect. She learns like a child, most days, in fits and starts of attention, but her movements settle, slowly, and he knows the lessons are taking hold. 

He thinks that if he were to take her to the island himself, if he were to let his face and his shame be known, they would accept her. After all, how could they refuse him even the greatest thing? But he sees how the villagers even here, the children and the mothers, shrink from Tehanu, and he shudders of how she would be treated at Roke. A scarred boy would face a harder time of it than one unmarked, but Tehanu would be visibly different in two ways. 

Besides, Tehanu was pledged elsewhere, and there she would thrive, when the time came.

.

After they moved into the bedrooms, Tenar starting sleeping curled towards the center of the house, so she could see Tehanu's door without getting out of bed. This morning, the bed linens had slipped down her shoulder, and her pale skin glowed golden in the light from the hearth. Ged pressed his face against the back of her neck and inhaled once-- her hair, warm, smelled of herbs -- before climbing over her to build up the main fire. Tenar opened her eyes and smiled at him sleepily before nestling into the pillow for a moment longer.

It is strange to think that Ogion lived as long as he did in this house without knowing it as Ged does now, but Tenar is the first woman to share this bed, just as she was the first girl to learn here. Tehanu, for her part, is the first to live as a child instead of as an apprentice. Ged watched her sleep, curled in the bed that had been his, and when she didn't stir, he padded to the door.

The goats slept crowded against each other, for warmth. Ged saw them when he reached the edge of the field, saw their steamy puffs of breath that matched his own, and nodded after he counted them. All were there. He checked the shadows between the trees as he headed back. 

The additions to the house blended well with Ogion's original room. Ged paused just outside, with one hand on the doorframe, and smiled. He had returned to the house over and over again, to be healed and to be taught, and perhaps he and his held as much claim over it as did Ogion. Perhaps it had merely stayed in the family.

He went inside, and found Tenar preparing breakfast. He joined her silently. The sunrise spread as they worked. When Tehanu came from her room, rubbing her eyes, the west-facing window showed pink sky, shot through with clouds. 

 


End file.
